Home owners like most owners of commercial property, outsource routine maintenance to professional plumbers. Typically, commercial plumbers have contracts to concurrently provide maintenance services on multiple properties. These properties might include large numbers of rental properties in the form of single family homes, apartment buildings, office buildings and retail stores. The objective of this invention is to provide a means to automatically monitor these structures and have the same monitoring system contact the plumber via cell phone to report the type of service that is required, and the location of the property in question. Single family homes, apartments, office buildings, schools and retail stores have multiple sources of water leaks that may be potentially damaging to the structure and the interior contents. These sources of damaging water leaks are hot water heaters, hot water boilers used for building heat, air conditioning systems that collect water within the evaporator housing, dishwashers, clothes washing machines, kitchen and bathroom sinks. In each case, water that is spilled, water that leaks from a water heater or air conditioning system or water that is collected in an undesirable location is a potential source for structural damage. In the case of a simple water heater or a commercial boiler that is used for building heat, there are two sources of a water leak. Water heaters typically have two means of failure that would discharge water. These are a perforated water heater storage tank, due to rust, or water being discharged from the over temperature and pressure valve (TNP) located in the top or the side of a water heater. It is not uncommon for a TNP valve to leak or fail in the open position, thereby discharging water onto the floor or into the overflow tank located under the water heater. In some cities, building codes require that the TNP valve be plumbed into the sewer. In this situation, an unmonitored TNP discharge system could continuously flow city water into the sewer, without anyone's knowledge. Over a period of time, this could be costly to the property owner.
In a residence, apartment or retail space, the water heater may be located in the basement, in the garage, in a closet or enclosure adjacent to the living area on the first, second or third floor. In a residence, office building or retail space, when the water heater is installed above a living area or office area, a water leak from the storage tank could cause extensive damage to flooring, carpet, furnishings or the structure itself. A hot water discharge from the TNP valve could be equally damaging to the structure and the interior of the building, depending on how the TNP valve is installed. The TNP valve may simply discharge to the water closet or into a pan under the water heater. More recent city building codes require the TNP valve to be plumbed into a closed drain that carries the hot water from the TNP valve into the buildings connection to the city sewer. If the TNP valve is properly plumbed to a closed drain and fails in the open position, as they typically do, it is unlikely that the property owner would know that city water is flowing through the water heater into the sewer. This leaking TNP valve will cause cold city water to continuously flow into the water heater, lowering the temperature of the water and thereby causing the water heater to heat water continuously, which drives up two utility costs, the gas or electricity use to heat the water and, of course, the cost of the water that is flowing into the drain.
The present invention consists of three major components. These are a) multiple water sensors that may be used under the water heater to detect leaks in the storage tank or water connections to the water heater, used under a sink, washing machine or air conditioning unit to monitor for water that is collecting due to a leak, b) a second type of water detector that is installed in the discharge line from the TNP valve and c) a single microprocessor based controller that collects data from the various sensors distributed throughout the structure and deliver an alarm to the property owner or a plumber who is providing maintenance to that property.
While this invention is designed to monitor multiple sources of water leaks in a building, there are several U.S. patents for sensing systems that focus on water heaters to detect leaks and turn off the water and heating source energy to the water heater. These patents include Franklin U.S. Pat. No. 5,240,022 and Barron U.S. Pat. No. 5,428,347, which disclose sensor systems, used in conjunction with hot water tanks designed to shut off the water supply in response to the detection of water leaks. There is now evidence that shows that shutting off the water supply to the water heater may cause severe overheating of the water heater, which thereby causes a water heater explosion. The objective of the invention described herein is to provide an early warning of a leak and the means to immediately notify a plumber to provide the repairs necessary. Furthermore, a slow leak is not, in our opinion, sufficient reason to shut off power and water to the water heater, which would render the household or structure without hot water, which would be very inconvenient to the residents or occupants. Early detection of a leak may permit the water heater, for example, to stay in service until repairs are made.
Three other United States patents, to Lenoir U.S. Pat. No. 5,632,302, Salvucci U.S. Pat. No. 6,084,520, and Zeke U.S. Pat. No. 6,276,309 all disclose safety systems for use in conjunction with a hot water tank. The systems of these patents all include sensors which operate in response to leaked water to close the water supply valve to the hot water tank. The systems disclosed in the Salvucci and Zeke patents also employ the sensing of leaked water to shut off either the gas supply or the electrical supply to the hot water tank, thereby removing the heat source as well as the supply water to the hot water tank.
While the various systems disclosed in the prior art patents discussed above function to sense potential malfunctioning of a hot water tank to either turn off the water supply, the energy supply, or both, to prevent further damage, none of the systems disclosed in these patents are directed to the monitoring of the entire structure for water leaks from multiple devices and sources, as previously mentioned, or the means to identify the type of leak or failure and contacting service personnel with a timely report of the type of failure, the day/date and time of the failure as well as the address of the property.